a question of cost
by themonkeytwin
Summary: If he didn't dial this time, he was a bloody coward. – Third "Silver and Gold" vignette, set after The Second David Job.


**Disclaimer:** not mine.

**Notes:** Set after_ The Second David Job.__  
_

**Silver and Gold**  
Continuing to follow the development of what a platonic (thus far, anyway) relationship between Maggie and Sterling might look like. Vignette that builds on "lit up by the skylight" and "overture in the aftermath", but hopefully makes sense without them, too.

Mostly, I just like putting Sterling's complexity in with Maggie's effect on people, and shaking them together to see what I get. Don't worry. There's fic with the team's names on them in the works too. If only I had time to write as much as I wanted to ... and so say we all, I suspect.

* * *

Sterling looked at the phone, hating that he'd reached for it three times without picking it up. He set his mouth. In the last few months they'd already met for lunch several times, along with many incidental office meetings, in the course of attempting to untangle the layers upon layers of claims caused by the theft and return of so many pieces. Their meals together had been both civil and productive. Even cordial, at times. This was no different. And if he didn't dial this time, he was a bloody coward.

She answered after three rings. "Hello?"

He tried not to start analyzing her tone. "Maggie? Sterling."

"Jim. How are you?"

She sounded calm. Casual. He hoped he could manage the same. "Oh – not bad. Listen, can I grab you for lunch? I could use your input on some things."

She paused. "Oh. I ... yes. You mean today?"

He didn't let her hesitation put him off, although he'd have liked to. "If that's alright with you?"

"Oh – uh, yes... No, of course. That would be fine."

Tension loosened its grip on him somewhat with the quick return to her customary professionalism. "I'll meet you at the gallery. Jake's?" he asked, refering to a local place that was decent and usually quiet.

"Sure. 12.30?"

"See you then." He surprised himself by adding, "Thanks."

Even though her reply was matter-of-fact, there was a friendliness in it, too. "Of course."

Waiting in the lobby for her, he found himself running an eye over the security measures. When Maggie appeared and caught him at it, he only smirked. "I see your crack squad is hard at work."

Their recent interactions had made Maggie an adept in countering his barbs without taking offense. "Mm, and not a single theft yet."

Sterling's smirk widened into a grin, and he opened the door for her with a slight bow. Jake's was only two blocks away, but the midday heat of late summer meant he arrived there with his shirtsleeves rolled up and envious of the light, fluttery material of Maggie's shirt. He liked her in the flowy whites and pale golds she tended to wear; sometimes he felt like he was walking next to a crisp shaft of sunlight.

She glanced over at him, and he quickly scoured that thought from his brain. Also the thought that the shape of her neck when she wore her hair up that way was very ... nice.

He busied himself with ordering, and then focused ruthlessly on the contents of the folders he'd brought with him. This had been a stupid idea. Thankfully, what he'd brought along was legitimately something he needed to go over with her. He wasn't so idiotic as to have a cover story with no substance, certainly not with Nate Ford's ex. He'd just get through the lunch and finish it up naturally. Gracefully. And then remember to never try this again.

Maggie took an absent bite of her salad, absorbed in the last of the documents. "This is all do-able," she said after swallowing. "Were you worried about the cost? The gallery can arrange it easily. What sort of timeframe are you thinking?"

"Two weeks?"

"Plenty of time." She made a few notes, then shut away her smartphone and smiled up at him, an artless smile that spoke of comfortableness, of defensive walls not held up against him. "Well, that was painless."

It was a smile he'd do a lot to see more often. In the last year or so, a sense of the rarity and value of real friendship had begun to make itself felt. Awkward, that. Maybe he was getting old, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to squelch it like he knew he should.

Sterling raised his glass. "To painless."

She clinked it with hers, but he couldn't miss the sudden downturn of her expression, no matter how quickly she hid it.

"It's today, isn't it?" he blurted, then cursed himself.

Her startled look told him she knew exactly what he was talking about. Her mouth opened slightly, but she didn't immediately answer, seeming not to know what to say.

"Sorry," he said, eager to fill the silence and take it back all at once. "Sorry. I didn't – it's none of my business. Forget I said it. I don't... Sorry."

When he finally looked at her, there was a tiny smile on her face. "I've never seen you this flustered," she said, and he wondered just how cruel she was going to be to him in return.

He set his mouth against the automatic squirm her observation produced, and shoved the files back in his briefcase. Yeah. This had been a _brilliant_ idea. Snapping the case shut, dignity demanded that he face up again. Meet her eyes. If nothing else, he was not going to leave with his tail between his legs.

Maggie's eyes were soft and sad, and stopped him in his tracks.

She just looked at him, making no effort to disguise the heartache. "Two years ago," she said quietly.

Sterling swallowed. "I know."

She nodded and dropped her gaze to the napkin she was twisting slowly in her fingers.

"Are you ... okay?" he asked hesitantly, then cursed to himself again, at the same time as her pained laugh. "Sorry," he said again, though not as self-consciously.

"No ... it's not... I just don't know how to answer that question." She looked away, out the window at the blinding sunshine. "I haven't even gone to the – grave, yet," she said, stumbling over the word. "I was going to go this afternoon..."

Then she looked back at him, suddenly remembering who she was with, and drew back into herself. "I'm sorry. I –" Her mouth firmed, a mask of collectedness. "You're right. This isn't ... business." She drew a breath, poised, isolated. "Was there anything else you needed?"

Studying her, he took no offense this time, a little ashamed at taking it before. He didn't speak for a moment, and when he did, it was deliberate, gentle. "I asked." He offered a tiny smile, as honest as he dared. "I was ... er, concerned."

Maggie frowned. "Is that why you asked to meet today?"

He bit back the instinctive denial, and eventually admitted, "In part." He sighed. In the light of real scrutiny, all his good intentions appeared suddenly very flimsy. "Look ... I know, I _way_ overstepped my bounds. It's not my place, and I shouldn't have... It wasn't my place." He gave a brief laugh, and he knew it came out bitter. He hoped she didn't read too much into that, anything that wasn't there. "I suppose, with everything that's happened, I didn't know if you had anyone who ... was nearby."

He realized anew just how idiotic he sounded, and promptly shut his mouth. He hated this. Hated, hated, _hated_ this. This was precisely why he never walked into a situation he couldn't command. A grieving mother? An accomplice in an art theft against him – even if that was a one-off thing – and on-going colleague? Nate Ford's brilliant and beautiful ex-wife? Several million red flags right there, and he'd ignored them all. Well, not so much ignored as disregarded. He wondered now why that was; those intentions were getting thinner by the second.

Maggie hadn't said anything. He fiddled with the catch on the case, preparing to stand up and put this god-awful lunch out of its misery, when once again she stopped him dead.

"Thank you," she said quietly, and when she met his eyes he knew those weren't just polite words. Knew she was thanking _him_. That she meant it.

The flush of warmth Sterling felt at that was no less frightening than the prospect of making a fool of himself; but it was very much harder to master. "Of course," he said gruffly.

She gave him an odd smile, then shook her head. "To tell the truth, I doubt any of the people I'm currently working with even know. And I ... I just don't want to talk about it. I wouldn't even know what to say to them."

He nodded. "Is there anyone around ... family?"

She shook her head. "Not really."

On impulse, he asked, "Is there anything I can do? I mean ... do you want someone to come with you this afternoon? Or something?"

The surprise in her eyes at what he'd said couldn't be greater than what he felt himself. Especially when, for all that he could tell, she was really considering the offer.

"No," she said, slowly. She looked out the window again, squinting against the glare. "I mean ... I don't..."

"It's alright," he reassured her honestly. The mere fact that she'd actually thought about it before refusing was beyond anthing he had any reason to expect.

She bit her lip, frowning at him again with equal honesty. "Sometimes I just don't know what to make of you, Jim."

He took a careful breath, not entirely sure about the atmosphere of transparency they appeared to have stumbled into. "Well ... what would help with that?"

"I ... don't know what your angle is."

Sterling didn't wince. Considering everything, it was a fair comment. But the puff of consternation that escaped from him wasn't fake. Sometimes, being an enthusiastically self-serving bastard could really come back and bite you in the arse. "Yeah." His fingers drummed an erratic rhythm on the tabletop, but, unsurprisingly, didn't dislodge anything helpful to the situation. "Yeah," he said again, in self-defeat. Which was just too ironic for words. All you had to do to scotch James Sterling was to _be_ James Bloody Sterling.

He jerked to his feet, case in hand, and clamped down on his mouth a split second before those easy, corrosive words spat out at a woman whose only son had died two years ago today. Basic decency wasn't the most laudable baseline a man could have, perhaps, but in his life it was sometimes all he'd had to cling to. And he hadn't always succeeded. But unleashing his scathing tongue at a wounded woman was _not on_.

He wasn't about to trust his mouth to say _anything_. He merely nodded to her, plucked the check from the table and turned for the cash register. The smothering freedom of LA's light and heat was only a few steps away.

But by the time he'd payed, she was waiting by the door. He gritted his teeth, but she spoke.

"I don't think I should have said that," she said candidly.

"It's the truth, though, isn't it?" he asked, keeping the pained note out of his tone as much as he could. After all, it wasn't her fault that it hurt.

"Yes," she continued with the same frankness. "It is."

Sterling was not going to have this conversation in the middle of a cafe diner with some slack-jawed bottle-blonde waitress gawping at them across a cash register. He opened the door for Maggie and followed her out, squinting at the brightness that hit like a migrane even after all these years. "Maggie –"

Which was a superb place to realize he had nothing he knew how to say.

"The thing is," she said, kindly, before his pause drowned to death in itself, "I just wouldn't feel... I couldn't visit Sam's grave with anyone... I could only go with a friend. You know?"

He did, and no one could take offense at something like that. "You don't have to explain yourself. I get it. It's – alright."

She nodded, gratitude in her clear eyes. They walked a block in their own thoughts, and the silence was not nearly as awkward as it ought to have been.

Waiting at the curb for the lights to change, Maggie asked, "You drove to the gallery?"

Sterling hummed an affirmative, not quite listening, then looked up when her inquiry seemed to linger on even after he'd answered. She was looking at him, but he didn't know how to decipher her expression. He frowned questioningly, but her attention was caught by the other pedestrians stepping out into the road, and the moment evaporated.

It wasn't until they arrived at the path to the gallery's entrance that she stopped and faced him again. "You could ... give me a ride," she said, not hiding her hesitation from him, her nervousness about making the offer that signified something more. Something like genuine friendship.

She couldn't be any more nervous than he was to receive it. "You mean – are you – sure?"

A little laugh escaped her, a bubble of escaping strain. "I actually don't know." The warmth of the laugh was real, though, and stayed in her smile.

An answering laugh escaped him, too, but then he sobered, shaking his head. "Perhaps you shouldn't be. You must have noticed I'm not exactly the world's greatest friend. I'm just not ... that kind of guy. I wouldn't even know how, any more. It's often seemed best that way." He shook his head again, giving what he could in return, no matter how paltry his honesty was in comparison to her generosity. "I'd only screw it up if I tried. I don't want to do that to you. You deserve better in a friend than me, and that's the only person I'm ever going to be. You don't want that. Believe me."

She was watching him, that smile still tugging at her mouth. "What about this," she said eventually. "You come with me this afternoon, and I don't ask you to be anyone but yourself."

Sterling gaped for a second, and just like that, he had nothing else to say. Nothing to dissuade her offer of friendship, as sincere as it was rare, to warn her off giving even a small corner in life to him. Nothing to weigh against the costs and entanglements of any kind of allegiance, he who flew so fast and so alone. Nothing to stuff the treacherous, frightening hope back down into the lockbox of his heart, where it belonged.

A friend. Of Maggie Collins. Of all people.

He pulled out his keys. "I'm parked over there."


End file.
